The subject matter herein relates generally to powered termination machines used for repetitively mechanically crimping electrical terminals onto wires.
Powered termination machines have been used in the connector industry to effect high-speed mass termination of various cables. The termination machine includes a moveable component, called a ram, that moves towards and away from a base or anvil component during a crimp stroke. As the ram moves towards the anvil, crimp tooling on the ram engages and compresses a barrel of an electrical terminal against the anvil, causing the barrel to bite into one or more electrical wires extending into the barrel to permanently attach and electrically connect the terminal to the wire(s), producing an electrical lead.
The terminals are typically fed to the termination machine attached to one another on a carrier strip. Some known termination machines include a shearing blade mounted to the ram. During the crimp stroke, the shearing blade is configured to strike an intermediary or bridge segment of the carrier strip between two adjacent terminals to sever the bridge segment, separating the two terminals from one another. In known termination machines, the shearing blade is secured in a fixed position relative to the ram. Thus, based on the position of the shearing blade, the shearing blade either severs every bridge segment of the carrier strip between adjacent terminals during a sequence of crimp strokes or, alternatively, does not sever any bridge segments, leaving the bridge segments intact. To switch the position of the shearing blade (e.g., from a cutting position to a non-cutting position or vice-versa), an operator may be required to deactivate the termination machine and then manually adjust the fixed position of the shearing blade on the ram.
In some connector applications, it is desirable to produce electrical leads that have a group of connected terminals, such as three terminals for example. The group of connected terminals allows the electrical leads to electrically connect and more wires than would be able to fit within a single barrel of a terminal. For example, if a single terminal can accommodate three wires, then a group of three terminals can electrically connect nine wires. In the group, the two bridge segments of the carrier strip between the three terminals are left intact, providing a conductive pathway between the terminals.
In order to produce a multitude of such three-terminal leads using a known termination machine, an operator first sets the shearing blade to a non-cutting position (or removes the shearing blade from the ram). One option is to run the machine for many crimp strokes to produce a long series of connected, crimped terminals, and then subsequently manually break off corresponding bridge segments of the carrier strip to isolate groups of three connected terminals. Another option is to run the machine for two crimp strokes, then stop the machine and switch the shearing blade to the cutting position before running the machine for another crimp stroke for the shearing blade to sever the bridge segment, yielding a discrete three-terminal group. But, to produce additional three-terminal leads, the operator must then stop the machine and reset the shearing blade in the non-cutting position before repeating the process. Both of these identified options are inefficient and require significant operator intervention, either for adjusting the position of the shearing blade or for manually breaking the bridge segments of the carrier strip.
A need remains for a powered termination machine that efficiently and automatically produces electrical leads having multiple attached terminals.